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Stitch problems................

Hello i am John from the Netherlands, i have just one week the nodal ninja mk3 + rd8 rotator, i use an tokina 12-24mm, if i shoot an 360x180 photo ( 3 rows,12 shots an row )i alway's have stitching problems. ( see example 3 ), it looks like an saw.
I use an Nikon d50.

Something appears to be loose or moving around. Are you using a remote control of some sort or are you pushing down on the shutter release with your hand? With so many shots, you may be bumping the camera and not realizing it.

Try shooting and stitching just the bottom row. Pick a place outdoors where you have room to move around. If the rotator appears nice and round, I would guess you have moved the tripod or camera during your sequence.

I believe the MK3 does not have a lock on the upper arm. It may be possible that the upper arm is drooping down during your sequence.

A Nikkor 10.5mm lens would cut your pictures down to 6 around +1 Zenith +1 Nadir +1 hand held Nadir patch shot (or 1 on tripod patch shot with the Nadir adapter). A Sigma 8mm would cut it even further to 4 around (tilted up 5 degrees) plus 1 hand held Nadir patch shot. No Zenith since the 5 degrees up tilt will cover the top. I am not saying your lens is the issue, as it is not. I am putting forth some other options to help make getting the panorama a little easier.

in addition to DenisS comment I feel like the tooth of the saw cuts to the right. So you have to move the camera to the right on the lower rail. Try to focus to the corner of the rotators head. Move down to 90° and then move upwards till you at least see 1/3 of the rotators head. Fix this position. Take 8 shots at 45°, this is already a lot of overlap. Stitch. When the tooth cuts to the right, move right, when the tooth cuts to left, move left. At the end you will find something like changing the side of cut within 1 mm to the right or left of your lower rail setting.

If you always have stitching problems (including outdoor scenes?), then your stitching errors may be at least partly due to how you stitch the images. If using PTGui, include the lens horizontal and vertical shift parameters in the optimization. (In Aadvanced mode, select the Optimizer tab and then select "Heavy + lens shift" in the "Minimize lens distortion" option list).

Something appears to be loose or moving around. Are you using a remote control of some sort or are you pushing down on the shutter release with your hand? With so many shots, you may be bumping the camera and not realizing it.

Try shooting and stitching just the bottom row. Pick a place outdoors where you have room to move around. If the rotator appears nice and round, I would guess you have moved the tripod or camera during your sequence.

I believe the MK3 does not have a lock on the upper arm. It may be possible that the upper arm is drooping down during your sequence.

A Nikkor 10.5mm lens would cut your pictures down to 6 around +1 Zenith +1 Nadir +1 hand held Nadir patch shot (or 1 on tripod patch shot with the Nadir adapter). A Sigma 8mm would cut it even further to 4 around (tilted up 5 degrees) plus 1 hand held Nadir patch shot. No Zenith since the 5 degrees up tilt will cover the top. I am not saying your lens is the issue, as it is not. I am putting forth some other options to help make getting the panorama a little easier.

yes i am using an remote controll, but maybe the click screw on my rd8 rotator is to tighten......
i gonna search it out next monday, and let this topic now what is beeing changed....

The fixing knob has to be loose, the detend plunger should be set that you can move around with one hand without holding your tripod. But on the other hand it has to click in. When it is too loose, you have a sort of "wider Click ".